Digital adoption - business change

Business change refers to the way a business operates. It focuses on the business processes and the impact a new clinical system will have on daily operations across all impacted services. This might include:

• community
• palliative
• social care
• secondary care
• mental health

So, it might not be just the GP practice impacted.

It is essential to identify, capture, and document current processes using process maps. These visual aids outline the steps required to complete tasks within the existing clinical system. This might include:

• document management
• consultations
• prescribing
• referrals
• cross organisational communications
• appointment management

You should also document any third-party software tools that support daily business activities. These will also be captured within your technical readiness assessment.

Once the new processes are agreed, they should be included in any training given to staff. This will help them understand the new ways of working. The processes can also be used to update or create standard operating procedures (SOPs). These will make sure the whole team works consistently and knows exactly what to do.

The people, teams or organisations who might be required in this stage of the migration are:

• business change leads
• care/residential homes
• children’s services (health visitors/school nurses/child health)
• community services/out of hospital care (adult community nursing, community physiotherapy/occupational therapists, fast response teams and hospice at home)
• mental health
• palliative hospice
• primary care networks
• secondary care (discharge summaries)

Changing your GP clinical system will impact different services, organisations and people. Carrying out a change impact assessment and stakeholder analysis will help identify these. They will also help you understand how the change affects your daily work and the wider system. This could include things like:

• how you request your pathology tests
• refer patients to other services like community adult nursing teams
• work with your primary care network
• receive discharge summaries from hospitals

It's important to look at your current business processes. They will enable you to map out how these are currently managed and maintained. You can identify any gaps and how these will be managed in the future, with new systems and ways of working. Consider the following:

• capturing pain points
• how things are currently done
• does it meet our needs
• are there any improvements that could be made

Creating process maps and doing gap analysis will help you spot any risks. This could include things like:

• people resisting the change
• important features being lost

Process mapping is usually carried out by one or some of the following:

• experienced business change managers
• change agents
• your IT providers training support team

They will look at how things are currently managed within the GP practice. It will also include looking at how the migration to a new system will affect your practice and wider ecosystem, e.g.

• community
• palliative
• secondary care
• mental health services

Capturing these processes and creating a visual map helps to:

• highlight areas that may need improvement
• identify where current ways of working will change

You may also identify new benefits or better ways of working irrelevant of a new system. There are various tools that you can use to create process maps, such as:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Visio

Doing these simple business change tasks helps staff get ready for the new processes that come with moving to a new GP clinical system. The new future state processes will be included in the training given to staff in the practice. New ways of working might also be identified in your wider eco system. You need to ensure relevant training is provided to help them prepare for these changes. You should also agree a timeline and go live plan with them. 

For more in-depth information and examples of process mapping please refer to the change management toolkit. Please note you will need to create a Futures account and request to join the change management area to access the toolkit.